


i’m so anxious; i’m lightheaded

by magpiesflyinghome



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Derry Disease Is A Bitch, F/M, M/M, Sedanley (IT), Self-Worth Issues, Stanley Uris is Not Okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:14:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25781929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magpiesflyinghome/pseuds/magpiesflyinghome
Summary: Everything doesn’t feel right, not to Stanley Uris. It’s like he isn’t himself anymore.
Relationships: Patricia Blum Uris/Stanley Uris, Richie Tozier/Stanley Uris (mentioned)
Kudos: 17





	i’m so anxious; i’m lightheaded

Stanley Uris is not dumb, never has been, but sometimes it just feels like he knows nothing about anything. Nothing about everything. He feels that there is always something that he is missing, that there is an answer that he needs but does not have access to. Usually, he can ignore that small sliver of a feeling, but right now it’s eating him apart. He can’t focus on anything, because he feels, he knows that there is something fundamentally amiss with his life right now. He doesn’t want to admit it, he doesn’t want to recognize in himself that there is something wrong, that his current contented situation is nothing but a prelude to something awful. For such a long time he felt so confident of himself, knowing the correct answers when given the options, but right now he feels the opposite.

Patty wouldn’t understand the feeling, because she isn’t him, she isn’t cut from the same cloth. She doesn’t know about his past. Now, he also knows little about his past, considering the fact that most of his childhood memories were promptly expedited outside of his brain when he entered his college dorm. It’s not like he attempted to regain them, he has tried everything he could, but his parents cut off access to any photos when he moved out, they wanted him to “move on from the past”, and he thinks that they remember more than they let on.

He desperately wants to ask them what they know, because there is always a knowing glance that they share when he asks. It’s like they pity him, like they believe he is weak for wanting to remember his hometown; his friends; his Bar Mitzvah;

his first love.

Usually the last part of that throws him into a loop, because Patty was his first love. He always thought of her that way, but maybe he is wrong, maybe Patty isn’t. Maybe there is a girl whom he loved so deeply in his hometown that he will never remember, but whenever he thinks that it’s a girl there is a distinct building feeling in his gut that feels the same as unease. It’s like he is disgusted by the idea that it was a girl, that he could love a woman the same way he loved that person. Stan thought he loved Patty, he really did, she was perfect for him. She enjoyed walks in the park, birdwatching, they shared a same taste in food, they both are quiet and calm. They never fought, they were sexually active, but it all felt wrong. It felt like she was too good to be true, like she just an expectation that he thought others wanted for him, and not what he wanted for himself. There was someone else he wanted, or more like someone else he _craved_.

It was odd to think that way, to think that he craved someone more than he desired Patty, he longed for their strong arms to wrap him up in an embrace, to tell him something that only the two of them would remember, and it was something to cherish. He wished he had that back, that sweet feeling that bursts through him in waves as the speculation of this person, of this supposed “soulmate” that for some reason still haunts him even years after their parting. Thinking of this person made him feverish, and it’s not the type that makes you feel sick, it’s the kind that makes the skin vibrate with anticipation, it agitates every part of your being with this sort of excitement, and need and _lust_. Stanley is not a hypersexual person, he never fixates on those types of subjects, but for some reason whenever he thinks of this person, it’s like his whole body is burning with **want**. A lot of it does not fit in a sexual sense, he does not expressly think of that old relationship as just a manner of sin, but he knows that this person makes him buzz, lights a fire under his ass, and makes life feel something other than routine.

Whatever it was, it was the opposite of Patty and him, it was _more_. That person did not allow him the solitude that sits in his and Patty’s house, over his shoulders in a way that tells him it will all end soon, that something is not over and that he needs to end it. Whoever was there was able to qualm those feelings, maybe some form of comprehension of the issue, they possibly were one of the keys, one of the answers to that big question. He wishes he still knew that person, not in a way to start an affair of wits and emotions, but so that he could have some form of closure on this never-ending feeling of dread. It eats away at his gut in a means to tell him that he is doing something he shouldn’t, like when a child is being told off for being disobedient, and that’s what he feels like: a wayward child. Stan is waiting for the inevitable scolding, the inescapable reprimanding from some adult figure older than himself, telling him that he’s been a naughty boy. He hasn’t been doing what was expected of him, and he was going to be punished for it.

For the discipline he was to receive, he did not know what to expect from a figure that he is starting to believe doesn’t exist. It’s all just his overactive imagination, like his mother had once admonished, telling him off for a story he told as a child. She had chastised him for such a thought of expressive creativity, he was meant to be a man’s man, like his father, he was not going to lower himself to the deceptions of the feminine wiles of artistic integrity and interest. He was better than that, and for some reason he never believed it in his childhood, some out force telling that it’s _okay_ to dream, that it’s okay to believe, that his fantasies were _okay_. Probably that same person, telling him everything was alright, _tell me everything, jitterbug_.

None of those stories from his head ever returned when he inspected his brain for them, he never could find them in the endless padlocks that litter the neurons in his mind, that he so desperately wished he had the bolt-cutters for. It would help him understand himself more, because he has been ignoring for a while that he doesn’t know himself, that he doesn’t have a word for himself. Maybe that’s good, in a way, that he doesn’t know who he is anymore, so that he could relabel himself with anything, but nothing fits. Stanley Uris is not a loving husband, not a hardworking accountant, not a survivor. He is an enigma to himself, to others, because his cold analytical expression can always be interpreted different ways, but no one truly knows what’s running through his head.

Except, he knows there is one person that would be able to know, to understand how Stan’s brain works in any situation. He doesn’t remember if he knows them or just knows of the idea of them. He hopes they existed, even if they never learned to like or love him, he wishes to have someone at least understand him. Patty is not that person; she barely knows him.

Which is a bad thing to say when you’ve been married to someone for almost ten years, but Stan didn’t mean it to be that way. He, he just has the distinct feeling that Patty will never understand, even if he explains. She’ll look at him different, she’ll tell him that he is disgusting, dirty, vile. She will finally know that deep down he has never loved her, or maybe he loved her the same way you love someone as a friend, and their relationship was just a big misinterpretation. They wasted years acting like they were something real, but nothing with Stanley Uris is real.

He is just a shell of his former self; he is just a hollow capsule that got left behind. No, not left behind, he left first. That person was waiting for him, and Stan left them, he was the asshole here, and Patty deserved better than an asshole.

All of this thinking makes him think about the voice that sits deep in the foreground of his thoughts, it taunts him with some form of his past. Vague things said, but it also tells him that he is weak, he will _never_ be able to help them, that he knows that is just a liability for those he loves. No one knows about that voice, it’s Stan’s burden to bear, to hold to his chest until he dies. It always fills him with doubt, who was he to think he could ever walk a road no one has ever walked before? Who was he to think he could turn away from his sins and act a saint?

He should return home, that’s what he needs to do. Stan needs to find closure, to find that part of himself so deeply rooted in the past that it cripples him in the present.

It’s a Wednesday when he actually sets out to go to Illinois, to talk to his parents seriously about his childhood. He knows they are going to deny him this, they are going to fight him, and maybe he knows why. They don’t like those he knew, those he loved, it’s just a fact when he thinks of his parents. They never liked his friends, they never liked **him**. Wait, wait, _wait_ … Who? Who did they despise so much they never want Stan to remember? Who was he so smitten with that he still feels their absence almost twenty years after their departure? Who was he so in love with that just the idea of them makes his heart sing like a bird? _Who? Who? Who?_ Why can’t he remember them? Why can’t he see the planes of their face like he used to be able to? Why can’t he say their name?

His hands grip on the wheel as he continues towards his parents, the gatekeepers to all of the answers, the one who hid everything from him. Anger is starting to build, mixing with betrayal as he knows they know, they know everything and have kept it from him. They are keeping this person, his friends, _everything_ from him.

He pulls into the driveway, parking his car and taking a breath. He can’t be aggressive, he can’t be angry, he has to be calm. He has to ask them, he has to make them give him the answers. They can’t keep up this shtick forever, and he’s almost forty-years-old and he’s not going to take “no” for an answer anymore. He wants to know, he _needs_ to know.

Stan cracks his fingers, a nervous habit he picked up somewhere around college. He exits the ‘Sedanley’, which is a lovely name Patty gave to his car, and he walks towards the front door of the house. His hand shakes as he moves it towards the doorbell, which he quickly quickly hits and moves his hand away as if it shocked him. The nerves are building in his stomach, and he feels like he’s going to puke. He watches his mother walk to the door through the side window, and it just makes the turmoil in his stomach churn harder, faster, hotter. She opens the door and looks surprised to see him, and she ushers him inside with excitement. He answers her questions and tries to act like his stomach isn’t fighting against him.

She sits him down at the dining room table and works around the kitchen to get him a tea, knowing that is usually what he drinks when he visits. He’s gotten too used to the humid atmosphere of Atlanta, so the cold of Illinois is usually takes him over and he needs to be thawed out. “How are you, Stanley? You don’t usually drop in for a surprise visit! Is something going on at home? Is Patty okay? Do we need to-“ “Mom, we’re okay, I’m okay, everything is okay. I just, I needed to talk to you about something.” She puts down the mug in her hand and looks at him, her hazel eyes hiding behind thin and round glasses. “I want to talk about home,” Stan says, looking her in the eyes. “You and dad have been avoiding my questions for almost twenty-five years,” he shifts his glasses for a moment, pushing the back up onto the bridge of his nose.

His mother starts to fidget with her hands, and he can tell that she looks nervous, she looks like a woman walking up to the gallows. “Your father, he has some ideas about your childhood,” she pauses, “That-That I don’t agree with, I–” She takes his mug off of the table and ushers it into the sink, pouring it down the drain, “We don’t have a lot of time before your father returns from his service, I’ll show you all I can.” His mother starts to walk towards the door that leads to the basement, he gets out of the wooden chair and follows her into the lit staircase. The craft room is on the left, and she opens the door and enters.

It’s a small room with pastel green walls, white trim, and is absolutely a chaotically organized system. His mother doesn’t go for any of the organization bins, but towards a back closet, and he hears dragging. She grunts as she is tugging a giant dark green Rubbermaid container into the room, there is a duct-tape label on it that reads ‘Quilting’. “Your father wanted me to get rid of all of this, just in case you asked again, but I just couldn’t part with any of it,” she pushes it over to the table and sits down in one of the chairs. The lid pops off and reveals a giant messy pile of papers, of pictures, or clothes or blankets. She starts to take out some of the photos and binders and trying to find something specific.

Stan joins her in rummaging through the giant box, picking up images and some papers covered in his own scrawl, and finds a small section of books hidden until a giant blanket. He places what he found on the table, and he choses which to go through first. The stack of photos, both film prints and polaroids, may be the most helpful for actual answers. He picks up the first one, it’s a chunky polaroid, and he doesn’t know the kids staring back at him. It’s a really short kid sitting between two taller ones, one of them is black and the other has a weird bowl cut. He doesn’t know what to make of their outfits, which seem to be the most tragic fashion tragedies to ever exist on the planet. Three names are written on the bottom in sharpie, Bill, Eds, and Mike. He nudges his mother, “Who are they?” She looks down at the pictures and smiles.

“Those were some of your friends, Bill is the one on the right, Eddie is the one in the middle, and Mike is the one on the left,” she explains, pointing at them as she spoke. “You knew Bill and Eddie longer than you knew Mike, but you two clicked immediately anyways.” She is smiling at the picture, “Keep looking, sweetheart, there is much for you to remember, and so little time.” He returns to the pile, finding more images of those three friends, until he reaches one from what looks to be one of his birthdays. There is the group of them lounging on couches, they look younger than in the polaroid. Bill, Mike, and Eddie are on one couch together, a girl and different boy are sitting together on the ground, but Stan is more interesting in the boy who is sitting next to his younger self. He’s skinny and pale, with long spindly limbs and black curly hair. He has giant glasses and really light freckles, and for some reason Stan can’t look away.

He slides the image over to his mom, “Who are the rest of them?” He is trying to keep his voice calm, trying to make his foot not shake with anticipation, he wants to know the boy next to him. She coos when she sees the photo, “It’s your fourteenth birthday party.” He nods, “Are these the others you mentioned?” She looks at him and nods, “The only girl is your friend Beverley, the boy next to her is Benjamin, the poor dears were quite taken with each other,” she jokes, and then her eyes land on the boy. “The one next to you is Richard, you two were best friends, almost inseparable,” she says, but he could tell there was something she wasn’t telling him. His mother slides the print back at him, and he sighs. He starts to go through the rest of the pile, flicking through various images of his friends, until he hits a specific group of polaroids at the bottom.

They seem to be some of the newer ones, as they had better color printing. It also seems like they were not like the rest, as they were just Richie. Some of them are blurry messes which were marked with a large X on the bottom. The rest are more candid shots, him smiling, him covering his face like he’s trying to hide from the camera, one of Stan’s head popped in next to his, and then the final one that cements something in his mind: Stan is kissing Richie’s cheek. It’s not the best, they take up the frame and it’s full of motion, you can tell that it wasn’t planned. His mother realizes he stopped flicking images, and she looks at him. She knows he just found it, she knows he now knows something, Stan knows what she couldn’t say out loud. “You loved that boy more than anything,” she states, her hands fidgeting with the paperback book she is holding. “Your father, he’s a good man, but he can’t see the good in that type of love,” she stops, her eyes shifting towards the table, “I did everything I could to make sure that you never knew, that you could be happy with him, but your father, he became,” she looks at him. “Your father became what he preached against,” she whispers, and then her watch beeps. “Take what you want, I have to put this away before your father gets home.”

She looks down at her watch for a moment, “We have ten minutes.” He nods, choosing some of the images, group ones and he doesn’t want to through the polaroids of him and Richie in the pile but he does, because there is so much more he needs to remember. Two of the books on the table seem interesting, as they are bound leather and don’t have labels. His mother places all of the leftover objects back into the box and clicks the container shut before she takes it into the small closet once again. They walk back upstairs and she waves him goodbye, knowing that Stan does not want to confront his father. “See you, Mom,” he says at the front door. “Come back anytime,” she replies, placing a kiss on his cheek. “Now get out of here, you have some reading to do,” she laughs. Stan laughs in response, waving at her as he walks to his car.

He gets behind the wheel of his car, turning the key until it purrs to life, and he backs out of the driveway, and that’s when he has a feeling. _He’s driving towards something, not away._

**Author's Note:**

> Oh god this went longer than I meant it to be.


End file.
